I often spend time working and helping out with the local roller derby league. I’ve wanted to play for ages but it simply hasn’t happened yet. Nonetheless you will often find me volunteering and working when I can- either in the parking lot or at the first door to meet and greet fellow loyal new and old supporters of one of my favorite sports.

It is a rare occasion when I attend a Sunday game. Sundays are generally reserved for my son first and then friends second. However he was on his way back from seeing a Cubs game in Arizona with my dad.

It wasn’t a day for my son’s story. It was a day for one of my long time fellow schoolmates… freshly arrived pluck from the middle of where we both called home for so long… before we found it here.

I’ve been ever so fortunate to encounter a multitude of romance stories, but theirs was.. well… it was theirs. And it was just something that you’d know a million of their stories without knowing a single one just by looking at them.

“Hi Jen.” he said as he approached.

And I saw her. This wonderfully vibrant and spunky spry gal by his side.

And although I knew he was bringing her before they got there, he didn’t need to say anything before I knew this was the love he’d always wanted. Of the love they’d both always wanted.

Listening to their story made me laugh. It made me puke rainbows. It… made me ever so happy and hopeful. It doesn’t just happen in movies. It happens to people around me. To good people with good hearts just as much as it does to shit bags.

I stood near them at the bout but gave them their space as they had their moments watching derby for perhaps the first time. I drank my Schlitz and heckled San Diego over their “strategy.”

“Cute new uniforms don’t make up for the lack of skating ladies. Skate the fuck up!”

And my friends were just standing in front of me happy and glowing. I’d like to believe that some of that was because of derby.

“I like her. She’s going to be my friend too. You’re going to have to deal with that. I’m not giving you a choice about it.”I said in a moment in between talks of art and their long trip out here.

He laughed. We all did.

While I was waiting for them and working earlier I’d noticed an old couple sitting on a pair of lawn chairs watching over the lot. I wondered why. When did watching people come and go in and out of an event become an event?

The couple held hands tightly. The wind blew. The sun shined a bit brighter.